The English Renaissance - if we may stretch this notoriously vague term to encompass at least the first half of the seventeenth century as well as the late sixteenth century - witnessed the greatest flourishing of the religious lyric in the history of English literature. Poems on the individual’s relationship with God were conceived, written, circulated, read, published, quoted, sung, copied out and imitated, with an excitement and fervour which it may be hard for us today to imagine. Some of the authors of these devotional poems will already be familiar - George Herbert, John Donne, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell - but there are many more names to add to even a selective list: Robert Southwell, Thomas Campion, Francis Quarles, An Collins, Henry Colman, John Abbot Rivers, Elizabeth Major, Cardell Goodman, Mary Carey, Thomas Washbourne, Vavasor Powell, and a woman called ‘Eliza’ known only from the title of her book of poems, Eliza's Babes} Using evidence as wide-ranging as the titles on publishers’ lists and the jottings in private commonplacebooks, we can build up a picture of a thriving culture of holy verse. The purpose of this essay is to examine the poetry of the leading figure in this culture, George Herbert, in the wider context offered by contemplation of the phenomenon as a whole.